Get the New England look

The warm and relaxed mood, the overall vigour broken down bypersonalized details, all contribute to that look that makes New England homes so special. Combining wood furniture with natural fabrics is a must, but what are the most important features that characterize this style? If you want that New England look for your home, here are some tips on the basic dos and don'ts and the new, upcoming trends.

Basic principles

The basic idea behind the New England look is a cleanliness of lines, married with a taste for quality of design and for local, natural materials. Nature, in New England, is pervasively beautiful and rich, and it produces everything the house needs, also providing inspiration for its colour palette and decorations such as flowers and small branches - freshor dried- shells, sand and pebbles. Therefore, materials are rigorously natural, from the wooden floors, normally made up of wide planks, to the upholstery fabrics innatural fibres, grasscloth wallpaper on walls and ceilings, stone like granite and slate both for flooring and countertops, indoors and outdoors.

Following the same principle, upholstery designs and prints will be inspired by natural forms, like stylized flowers and plant motives, or will be the evergreen, monogrammed linens and simple stripes. Millwork, such as doors, window casing, baseboard, mantels, can be rich but never over the top. Woodwork in general is often painted traditional white and creamtones.

The most important feature in the choice of furniture is quality of design and materials and durability: the style can vary from formal to rustic, but all furnishing should be durable and comfortable.

Add a personal touch: it may be the books you have collected in a lifetime, neatly organized and exhibited on shelves, the photographs of your family and relatives, covering a large area of a wall, that chine set herited from your grand-grandmother on a special place . Also, provide standpoints: original artworks, unique objects of decorative folk craft.

New trends

The New England look, as we have seen, it's not about austerity, rather about quality of life. And because it is your life, your home should reflect your style taste. So don't be afraid of trying out some variations on the basic themes. Because that is exactly what great interior designers do.

Recently, for instance, there has been a predominance of hues never seen in the past, or, at least, not all together! Although natural, pastel colours have been traditionally associated with New England decor, colour has been a big come back: teals, oranges and violets mostly, with a predominance of turquoise and lavender. They can be used with more neutral colours, for example in the successful combination greys and lemon or other summery colours, or even mixed together.